Month: June 2016

As any regular cinema-goer will be able to tell you, the price of cinema tickets seems to be constantly rising. From 2006 to 2015, the average price of a UK cinema ticket rose from £4.87 to £7.17 (with that average including children’s tickets and special offers which results in a lowered price).

Clearly in the last decade there has been significant development in the technology used in the film industry and films like Avengers: Age of Ultron would not have been possible without huge budgets. The more expensive it is to make films, the more expensive it is going to be to watch them but when is enough, enough?

The cinema was once considered to be the cheapest form of entertainment but we now live in age where invites to watch a movie are rejected because it simply is not affordable. People keep saying that we are now living in the golden age of television but maybe it just feels that way because nobody can afford to go to the cinema.

Studios, and indeed films, have always competed against each other for views and to make more money at the box office but the situation has never been as acute as it is now. Sure, the studios aren’t launching hate campaigns against each other (yet) but should they dare schedule movie releases for the same week, magazines begin betting on which will come out on top and which will flop.

The sad thing is, that’s exactly what happens. I remember when I was younger I could go to the cinema with my mum and we’d see two films in a row but now I have to gripe about whether I can afford to watch just one. With a student discount.

As somebody who reviews films just because they love it, doing that is becoming a lot harder. Summer is blockbuster season and in July alone there are nearly ten separate films that I am incredibly excited about but I’ll be lucky if I get to see three.

Out of respect for all of the people that spend months at a time working on a film I refuse to pirate them when they’re in the cinema, but I can understand why other people would want to. The largest reason that people I know stream new films online is that they can’t afford to go to the cinema. Of course it’s sometimes laziness or plain old cheapness but largely, it’s the price.

So, is the price of cinema tickets fair? If we take an adult ticket at £10 and assume a 2 hour film, you’re paying £5 for every hour of entertainment. That’s definitely more expensive than a lot of other forms of entertainment – it’s the combined monthly price of my Netflix and Amazon Prime Video subscriptions but I still go.

When you go to the cinema, you’re not just paying for the film: you pay for the experience. The trailers, the calm dark room, the air-conditioning, the atmosphere.

I don’t think that the prices are fair but I’m not going to stop paying them. Let’s just hope that they stop rising.

What do you think of cinema prices? Do you prefer to watch films at home or do you like the cinema experience? Let me know in the comments.

Season 4 of Orange Is The New Black was amazing. I loved it to the point where reviewing it would be pointless because I would literally just be showering it with praise. After watching the season over the course of 36 hours I was sure that I wasn’t alone in that opinion but apparently I was wrong.

To clarify, the majority of people that have watched it have in fact loved it – critics and casual spectators alike – but the very intense fan communities that I consider myself to be a part of do not share that opinion.

A major criticism of this season was the killing off of the character, Poussey. People complained that it was a distasteful exploitation of the Black Lives Matter movement whilst also continuing the damaging trope that occurs consistently in television of killing off gay characters.

I completely disagree.

As I watched the episode where Poussey died, there was a sense of inevitability – you knew it was coming but you were powerless to stop it and that is one of the show’s longest running themes: powerlessness. As a prisoner you have no real power, your fate is in the hands of authority figures and you can only hope that they will assert their power in a fair way.

Poussey couldn’t have saved herself; Taystee couldn’t have saved her; and as much as we wanted to, we couldn’t have saved her.

A big argument is that the show could have killed off anybody. They didn’t have to be black or gay or even happy? Except the problem with that is then it wouldn’t have had as big an effect on the public. As far as TV shows go, Orange Is The New Black, has a huge percentage of queer characters in their show so I can’t imagine that sexuality played a big part in their decision to kill Poussey.

As far the idea of the show exploiting Black Lives Matter goes, to say that would be the cheapen the whole thing. Rather than exploiting it the show was trying to showcase it. Listening to the news is hard: there is so much death and violence every single day that you stop hearing the names and you cease to think of the dead as real people. Fans of the show have seen Poussey’s life over the span of three years and so you can’t switch off – you feel pain and you recognise the injustice of it all.

I guess what I’m saying is that I grieved over Poussey’s death and that’s a sign of a truly great show.

What did you think of this season? Do you completely disagree with me? Do you think that they could have put forward their idea without killing off Poussey? Let me know in the comments.

Happy Sunday, I hope your week was all kinds of awesome. From trailers to casting and pushed back release dates, there is just so much to share so let’s get started.

Best Piece Of News

Donald Glover has officially been cast in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Remember when the Internet was ready to storm Marvel headquarters, complete with flaming torches and pitchforks to get Glover cast as Spidey? Well they finally got what they wanted – except not. Tom Holland is still playing Spider-Man (and based on Captain America: Civil War he’s going to be great) but Donald Glover has an unknown role in the film.

Worst Piece Of News

The sequel to the surprising hit, The Lego Movie, has been pushed back from a May 2018 release to February 2019 by Warner Bros. Whilst this is definitely sad news, The Lego Batman Movie will hit screens early next year and help to bridge the gap plus the extra time could mean that film will be even better. Optimism.

Most Bizarre Piece Of News

Gotham is re-casting the role of Poison Ivy for their upcoming third season. Why are they doing this? Well that would be because the current actress, Clare Foley, is 14 years old and they didn’t want it to be super-weird when they began to sexualise the character.

And Everything Else…

Hoechlin Goes From Wolf To Superman

New Storks Trailer

Pete’s Dragon Trailer

Helen Mirren In Fast 8

Moana Trailer

Wolverine 3 Set Photos

If those headlines weren’t quite the informative nuggets that you were looking for then you can find out more about all of those stories right here but until next time:

Are you upset that Donald Glover isn’t Spider-Man? Can The Lego Movie sequel live up to the original? What do you think of the Gotham re-casting? Let me know in the comments.

Happy Saturday, have you started watching Orange Is The New Black yet? You should, it’s amazing. Anyway, I have news for you so let’s get into it.

Tyler Hoechlin Is Superman

Okay, maybe Tyler Hoechlin isn’t actually Superman but he will be playing him in the next season of Supergirl. After the first season of the show only revealed part-images and blurred pictures of the Man of Steel he will finally have a face – a face you may remember from Teen Wolf.

New Storks Trailer

We got a new trailer for Storks and it looks wonderfully sweet. It’s always fun to see an animated film from a company that isn’t Disney or Dreamworks. With Andy Samberg on board you can expect comedy but judging by the trailer, there are also some very genuine moments. You can watch the trailer below:

Lego Movie 2 Release Date Pushed Back

Warner Bros. have pushed the release of their Lego Movie sequel back from May 2018 to February 2019. It’s sad news for fans of the original movie but not to worry, The Lego Batman Movie comes out early next year to help bridge the gap.

That’s it today but if you missed anything this week then come back tomorrow for our weekly round-up. Until then:

Can you see Tyler Hoechlin as Superman? Will you go see Storks? Are you a fan of the Lego Movie franchise? Let me know in the comments.

Happy Thursday, once again I have nothing from E3 to report but there’s still so much cool stuff so stick around.

New Pete’s Dragon Trailer

Disney’s remake of the 1977 film, Pete’s Dragon, finally has its first trailer. It shows us the CG work and a promising cast including relative newcomer Oakes Fegley. The trailer teases the eponymous dragon (who’s name is Elliott) until the end where we finally see that he’s… furry? This is no Game of Thrones dragon but he is very cute, check out the trailer below:

Donald Glover Joins Spider-Man: Homecoming

If Donald Glover can’t be Spider-Man then at least he can be in the Spider-Man film. Glover has joined the cast of Spider-Man: Homecoming in an unknown role. He joins Zendaya, Tony Revolori and Michael Barbieri who will play Spidey’s friends. After Captain America: Civil War, I can’t wait to Spider-Man’s solo outing but the cast list keeps getting better and better.

Helen Mirren Joins Fast 8

In more casting news, Helen Mirren has joined the cast of Fast 8 and as per usual, we have no idea who she will be. That’s a fun theme we play out again and again: I say somebody’s been cast, I have no idea who they’ve been cast as. Good times…

That’s it today but there will be even more news on Saturday. Until then:

Do you like the original Pete’s Dragon? Are you still hoping that Donald Glover gets to play Spider-Man? Fast and Furious franchise: a fan or no? Let me know in the comments.

Over the last few days it has been difficult to find a lot of happiness in the world because once again we’ve been reminded of just how shitty individual people can be. For some reason, a lot of this week’s content was based around some heavy themes so I’ve essentially scrapped that and we’re going to try to focus on the positives – on the reasons why the world isn’t doomed and where we can snatch those moments of joy.

Let’s talk about all of the reasons why Disney’s Moana is a reason to smile.

1) Moana – the girl, not the film.

Moana is Disney’s first Polynesian princess (score for representation) and she is voiced by a native Hawaiian, Auli’i Cravalho. Also, based on the trailer, it looks like she’s plenty kick-ass without the help of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s demi-god, Maui.

2) Maui

Speaking of The Rock, this will be his first ever Disney movie. He has one of the friendliest and most charismatic voices and is also of Polynesian descent. Judging from a bit of that subtle eyebrow work in the teaser, we can expect the demi-god to share a little bit more than a voice with The People’s Champion.

3) Art Style

It looks like Disney could be exploring some new art styles in certain sequences. I’m always excited when Disney take a risk and is it just me or does their Maui animation (top picture) look a lot like the opening sequence for Hercules (bottom picture)?

4) The Music

You know I’m obsessed with Hamilton so obviously I have to talk about the music. The music for the film is composed by Hamilton‘s Lin-Manuel Miranda, Mark Mancina and Opetaia Foa’i. We only had the smallest of listens in the teaser trailer but it sounds beautiful.

I’m sure that there a million more reasons to be excited about Moana and I would love for you to share those so tell me:

What are you most excited about for Moana? Can you believe that it has taken this long for The Rock to appear in an animated Disney movie? Let me know in the comments.

Happy Tuesday everybody, if you are completely psyched about E3 and can’t wait to hear about all of the news coming out of there then you are most definitely in the… wrong place. I’m sorry, games aren’t my things but I have other news?

First Moana Teaser

The first teaser trailer for Disney’s Moana was released yesterday and it looks amazing. The animation is typically beautiful for Disney but it feels like a very new story for them. Maybe it’s the Rock who, even in voice-form, has such a presence but something about this feels wonderfully fresh. You can watch the trailer here:

Gotham Re-Casting For Season 3

Gotham is re-casting the role of Poison Ivy for their upcoming third season. The role was played by the young Clare Foley in the first two seasons but it looks like the show are looking for an older actress so that they can sexualise her and have it not be too weird. I realise I sound bitter, but to be fair to Gotham, seducing men is kind of Poison Ivy’s whole schtick.

Wolverine 3 Set Photos

Filming for the third (and potentially Hugh Jackman’s last) solo Wolverine film has begun and there are now some set photos circulating. Most interestingly, we see Logan hanging out with Professor Xavier – Patrick Stewart, not James McAvoy (“these timelines are so confusing!”). You can take a look at the full set of photos over on Just Jared.

That’s everything for today except that Emmy voting is now open. If you didn’t vote in your local election then redeem yourself, go vote for your favourite TV show. There will be more news on Thursday but until then:

Are psyched about Moana? Do you still watch Gotham? Have you seen enough of Wolverine? Let me know in the comments.